There have been many Twitter-clones that have emerged over the past few years. There’s been Koornk, and German clone Duduku. Yahoo rolled out its microblogging service, Yahoo Meme, a few months ago in Portuguese, then Spanish and finally in English a few weeks ago. It looks like there is another clone on the block—Birddi.
The microblogging site is a virtual clone of Twitter. Everything from the blue interface to the to the style of the logo to the actual “Birddi” bird is strikingly similar to Twitter. According to the site, Birddi is “a service for friends, family and coworkers to communicate and stay connected with the exchange of quick messages. People write short updates, often called ‘Berddis’ in 140 characters or less.” Like with Twitter, you can Direct Message other users, post pictures and use hashtags to mark communications. Birddi also features trending topics and search functionality. One big difference: the site features advertisements powered by Google AdSense.
According to this Argentinian news article, (here’s the translated version) Birddi was started by 19-year-old Argentinian developer Martin Lio, who saw the power of Twitter during the 2008 presidential elections and hoped to inspire this communication during Argentinian elections with a Spanish clone. In the report, Lio says he is also planning to launch a Birddi iPhone app.
The site has basically stolen all of Twitter’s lay out, branding and wording, which seems totally sketchy. This must surely infringe upon a patent or copyright.
Eigh. Clones fail. Twitter can sue for the money they’ve made off ads.
DAM THIS IS STRAIGHT RIP OFF. I mean no new input of their own. Give credit where credit is due. This should be illegal.
ok, we can ease up. it is done by a 19 year old. 15 mins f fame. he will wise up soon enough, maybe get a job at twitter.
Twitter should be licensing its technology platform to local companies to create localized versions of the site “powered by Twitter”. That will create an additional revenue stream.
These cloning efforts also serve to prove that Twitter grew from an experiment and not with a vision of launching a “world-class” application. The lack of business model also proves my point.
Cool clone but if it’s argentinian it can’t be spanish, it cold be an spanish speaking site but from Argentina, not Spain…
It’s Spanish if you talk about the language…
Como se dice “Lawsuit?”
Demanda. Y por falta de creatividad.
Even a picture of @Ev is on its landing page.
http://tr.im/birddi
twitter are very serious about things like this,
they deffiniately wont stand for this..
Some people really have no shame… Pathetic and an embarrassment to the developer community IMO.
Ouch, no me gusta.
This is what I am talking about. If you gonna clone, do it 100%. I call this “The Birddi way”…of cloning.
How can the even do this? Crazy.
I really can’t imagine why someone might want Twitter in Spanish, it has only one button! Do you really need a translation for that?
Besides, the design is a complete rip-off (and a badly one), I don’t think Twitter will let this run so far :S
And there is a twitter logo with a link to http://www.twitter.com in the footer!
Fail, you can’t be a designer/programmer if you can not create unique platforms.
It seems Birddi are proving you wrong so far.
Its one thing to have access to a piece of customizable software source but Twitter are not offering their server software for 3rd parties so yes this is quite flagrant.
the clone won’t be complete without an mc sanchez blogging for techronchado.com.ar, ranting every day about birddi fail ballenas and confusing his delicate sense of convenience as a foundation for criticism.
Well considering Twatter is useless and will collapse soon, a spanish clone of it is bound to fail. Plus we all know that the internet only speaks english and revolves around the bay area. The valley is the center of the universe, the density of egos here has the same gravitational pull as the sun. The only people speaking spanish here are mowing my lawn while I drink my $7 latte on my $3500 MacBook Pro smelling my own farts on Twitter, is my gardener really using twitter? is he really human? he doesn’t even have an iphone!
Well I am off to ride my high horse into the valley sunset. Sniiiiiifff! ahh my farts are glorious today! God they smell good, Calacanis can you smell this? Oh man so good!
HahahA, you nailed it. Keep on farting
lmao, srsly? This is a joke, right?
http://www.yout...h?v=_sHTzhkKlC0
They even steal the video twitter have, man, whatttttttttttt.
Could this be a side project from within twitter to extend into Spanish speaking countries? I don’t know, but if this guy thinks copying is without repercussion, he is dead wrong.
Can someone in this day and age think there can be no wrong in a translated copy of a site or service? a copy is a copy and unless there is strict permission, infringement is happening here.
http://www.switter.com is a nicer copy
I can’t imagine why someone would go to all the effort.
they are nuts, why do they have to copy everything? Sure if they make a similar service, but why copy everything? Retarded. Instead they should have improved twitter, spanish speaking countries love the usage of groups for example, different design plus the use of groups could have worked really well.
Copying is fine, but this is just pure clone. Tienes que hacer algo mucho mejor!
No puedo esperar para ver cuánto tiempo le toma a esta empresa para ser demandada por Twitter.
I would ask if it’s a slow news day, but I know for a fact there are tons of great startups dying for press coverage, yet you give it to this rubbish, another clone of a successful site?
I second that….
Well, have you seen http://www.bloggy.se
The title is wrong: birddi is from Argentina. Maybe it is a clone in Spanish but it’s not a Spanish clone (it’s not from Spain).
This is embarrassing for all Argentine entrepreneurs. A joke.
Sir,
STFU. I can confidently say that at one point in life, you have copied something from someone. Whether its a material possesion, or something linguistic.
Turn down a hate a little.
Yours truly,
Bob.
Hey Bob,
Fuck You. Fucking copyright hating, communist loving twit.
Funny how on the main page there’s a link to Twitter.
Pathetic – how can any entrepreneur feel good about having their name tied to this garbage? Have some dignity!
he’s a 19 year old kid. Maybe he was just trying to test his programming chops.
or maybe he is a slimebag
You people are seriously missing out a single aspect: FUNDING!
This guy “Martin” has (to anyone’s knowledge) not received a CENT. What you people should be watching to see is whether this person still has all the issues that (in twitter’s case) still resulted in fail whale 1 our of every 7 days (slightly exaggerated).
If he has none of the issues and all of the benefits, this guy will be my hero!
Nuff’ Said.
its probably less likely to fail if it has 1/10,000 of the traffic
ashley is right – its odd techcrunch choose to feature this blatant ripoff. The last blog entry of birddi is dated july so hardly any news here.
The real story is why Twitter has delayed the launch of its service in Spanish despite previous public pronouncements it was coming soon. In the meantime FB continues worldwide unabashed whilst tweaking their service to be ever more Twitter like.
Come on Techcrunch, tell us the lowdown on that one instead of spilling stuff about superscreen scrapers like this bird turd.
Is this guy serious? its a complete copy and he even uses the common craft show video just talking over it what a dirt bag, at least change the design a little
Wow, an ugly Twitter clone, but, hey, with ads!! Let’s go there, everyone… not.
It is very easy to find twitter clones (to buy or on line), I do not see why this is taking to much exposure. There is no achievement (technical, vision, customization) BUT he really knew how to get attention.
So if I copy Twitter in French, can I get on TC?
lol
I think it made TC because of the blatant stealing of Twitter somehow.
i want to translate your posting to my bahasa indonesia..thanks before
damn.
You could get an exact Twitter clone made for $2500 at elance.com or getafreelancer.com
This isn’t really worthy of a story at TC
Cool clone. But they cant beat Twitter. Twitter Rocks
Schedule Twitter Tweets
nice clone? lol
http://blastoffpress.com
http://evolvhealthy.com
That’s like http://www.studivz.de and #fb
The footer actually still contains the Twitter logo. LOL. These guys are getting sued.
As mmoroca said, it is from Argentina, not from Spain. Anyway, it seems not professional at all… Do spanish speaking people need a button to be translated?
Not a worthly story for TC.
Check my Swedish microblog service Bloggy at http://bloggy.se
Here is creative micro-blogging twitter clone http://www.artylizer.com with location, images and embed videos.
Just a Clone!!!! puaajj See a spanish Micro-blogging at http://dixme.com
considering the popularity of social networks in Latin countries, microblogging should catch on as well. Limiting Latinos to 140 characters may be a trickier proposition though
Latinos would include Spain, Portugal, Brazil, Italy, France, and some other countries that have languages derived from Latin.
That is a lot of people!
Cheers!
If he wanted to make a spanish micro blogging service he shouldn’t make it look like a complete twitter rip-off. I give it a week before twitter files a lawsuit.
since the website is from argentina, well in gerneral no one in south american countries respects copy right, patent or any other kind of rights they think that if u can copy it there wont be a problem
How can you make a statement like that? Can you prove what you are saying?
I’m sorry to say, but your comment is as lame, as birddi; it sounds ignorant and racist.
I’m from Argentina and I’m a Twitter user. I agree that this website is a shame, but saying that in all South America there is no respect for any kind of rights or copyright is not right.
Regards!
From Birddi’s “Twitter” page:
Birddi se desarrollo debido a la saturación de Twitter.com. Creándose un microblogging exclusivo para la comunidad de habla hispana, manteniendo su estética y diseño original.
— TRANSLATION —
Birddi was developed due to saturation of Twitter.com. Creating a unique microblogging for the Hispanic community, maintaining its original design aesthetic.
And that Twitter logo in the footer is actually linked to twitter.com…
http://birddi.com/techcrunch
Say Argentina is Spain is like saying Australia is UK, go back to school mum.
The funniest part about this Twitter website clone is that it has a copyright symbol in the footer.